This Friday’s featured artist is Olivier Gratton-Gagné of iLikeMaps!
He writes:
iLikeMaps are designed to be presented as work of art, rather than an orientation tool.
The story starts a decade ago, when then-teenager Olivier from Montréal was spending a disproportionate amount of time starring at maps. Waiting for the bus was no problem, because the city transit map was full of interesting discoveries. Geography and history classes were cool because of the giant maps hung all over the room. When travelling with the family, Rand McNally and Michelin road maps were part of the trip itself.
He writes:
iLikeMaps are designed to be presented as work of art, rather than an orientation tool.
The story starts a decade ago, when then-teenager Olivier from Montréal was spending a disproportionate amount of time starring at maps. Waiting for the bus was no problem, because the city transit map was full of interesting discoveries. Geography and history classes were cool because of the giant maps hung all over the room. When travelling with the family, Rand McNally and Michelin road maps were part of the trip itself.
San Francisco
The interest grew only stronger in 2005 when Google released Google Maps, with satellite imagery and countless layers of data. Olivier could spend evenings exploring the maps of the places he loved.
London
A little later, he met Andrée-Anne, his alter-map-ego. At first surprised with his uncommon taste, Andrée-Anne quickly embraced Olivier’s passion. The formidable cartography duo was born.
Islamabad
Things accelerated in 2012. While spending a gap year in Leeds, UK, Olivier discovered the wealth of data available freely from the open project OpenStreetMaps. With his coding and graphic design skills, Olivier came to realize that he could create map prints himself!
Amsterdam
